Games into final lap

The Olympic Games aren’t officially over yet, but it’s never too early to start the post-mortem.

Let’s start with the war against cliche.

Those — often embarrassing — stowaways, some may say cultural impediments, to a nation’s efforts to stage an event of truly global importance, gaffe-free.

Rain.

That’s the obvious one for Great Britain.

To the perhaps profound disappointment of the Czechs, who gamely sported Wellington boots during the opening ceremony, there wasn’t much of the stuff. It rained more than enough in the run-up to London 2012. Enough to fill the Olympic stadia many, many times over. When it counted, not so much. Not yet, anyway.*

Pageantry.

Another good one.

Sure, the royals were about, lending their backyards to volleyball players and whatnot. But when Her Majesty followed 007 off that chopper two weeks ago Danny Boyle got us off to a good start debunking some of the more curious curiosities in Team GB’s cabinet. The Queen’s granddaughter galloped to a team silver medal in an equestrian event. Wills and Kate made it to the water polo and the swimming. There was some exuberantly regal cheering-on of the athletes at this or that event around town. Other than that, though, the Buckingham Palace crew mostly kept themselves to themselves.

Keep calm and carry on.

The five words that arguably sustained Britain through the Blitz haven’t really applied here. Some 70,000 volunteers have been on hand to Jeeves-away each and every transportation and map-reading hiccup. Before they had the opportunity to happen. Our intern, for example, was expecting to have to stand for two weeks on her daily Tube ride. Instead, she got a seat every time. Even Mayor Boris Johnson obliged, good sport that he is, and got stuck on a zipline.

Look after the pennies and the medals take care of themselves.

Ahead of the Games, Prime Minister David Cameron made much of the fact that he was personally fronting an event that was on time. On budget. On his watch. Except that — small print alert — the budget had to be doubled. Oh, and it was the Labour government that won the pitch. But still. Rarely does Britain get mentioned in the same gold-medals breath as the U.S. and China. This time around, she’s not far off the pace. In fact, Team GB has secured at least as many medals at London 2012 as lands it used to rule over. Probably.

Legacy.

The point of it all for some. The Olympic Park in London’s Stratford area was seen not simply as an opportunity to revitalize an economically deprived neighbourhood, but a chance to leave some fantastic sporting facilities behind. Now, Lord Coe and the rest of LOCOG board have a little bonus on their hands: The Royal Mail is painting a gold mail box in every gold winner’s home town.

Let’s not forget, too, that the Brazilians are on deck.

In keeping with Games handoff protocol Brazil’s organizing committee will get eight minutes during Sunday’s closing ceremony to showcase the nation’s Olympic pedigree for Rio 2016. In Beijing, Britain rocked up in a red double-decker bus.

Expect samba. Or perhaps the greatest soccer player who has ever lived will be carried on stage atop a replica Copacabana beach. There’s the passion thing too, mind. Brazilians reportedly have that part of the market covered.

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